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FEATURES:
SHEFFIELD 150 - The city's ex-Midiand Railway station has reached a major milestone.
FROM COAL TO NUCLEAR - Full story of the PFA wagon fleet.
0-60: CLASS 331 - Can Northern’s three-cars take the crown?
‘GOYLES’ VS ‘TRACTORS’ - Derby Trainman recalls dealing with ‘31s’ and ‘37s’.
THEN & NOW: LEEDS - When Class 20s came to town.
REGULARS:
SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS - The best ways to get Rail Express every month.
TIME TRAVELLER - Headlines from decades past.
LETTERS & REVIEWS - Feedback and modern traction books.
HEADLINE NEWS - Government takes over running of Northern franchise; Green light for full HS2 to Leeds and Manchester; Top awards for Test Car 2; LNER to retain ‘91s’ into 2022; First Class 777 arrives on Merseyside for commissioning; Network Rail calls for rethink on capacity issues; New depots for Cardiff and Bescot; Island Line infrastructure boost.
LU WORLD - TfL’s financial pressures mount up.
RAILTOURS - GBRf announces another four-day tour.
PRESERVATION - More ‘142s’ enter preservation; Great Rocks to go main line; Finmere 4-CIG moves to Burton; 125 Group to acquire Mk.3s; Class 24 to visit Ecclesbourne Valley Railway.
POWER BY THE HOUR - First Class 60 goes for scrap.
POWERSCENE - Notable workings, Name Game, and Spectrum.
UNITS - More ‘Pacers’ head to the scrapyard.
COACHES - Porterbrook HST disposals begin.
SHUNTERS & INDUSTRIALS - Uncertain future for RMS fleet.
WAGONS - DC Rail leases 100 JNAs.
IRISH ANGLE - Winter storm hits Northern Ireland services.
MODELLING:
There are some great new models up for review this month, including Bachmann’s ‘OO’ gauge Class 24, Heljan’s ‘O’ gauge Class 03 and Class 50, and Accurascale’s t. PFA container wagon. There’s also news of the forthcoming releases of a Class 27 loco, Class 159 DMU, a large scale Class 33 and an ‘N’gauge Class 313.
SO February 11 brought the news the rail industry has long been waiting for, as the Government gave the go-ahead to the full HS2 scheme from Euston to Birmingham and on to Manchester and Leeds. Plans were first announced more than 10 years ago (see Time Traveller, page 31), but - a bit like the Brexit issue - it divided opinion along non-party lines, with supporters and opponents on both the left and right of the political spectrum. Now though - and again like Brexit - whichever side you were on before, a decision has been made and everyone can focus on making the best of it.
The impact of HS2 on our railways cannot be overstated. The timescales mean there will be up to 20 years of major construction, helping to keep the freight firms busy (and hopefully a number of heritage locos too!). Then when passenger services begin, first to Birmingham by the end of this decade and the Northern cities in the late 2030s, it will add significant capacity to the wider network. With inter-city travel to the north focused on HS2, paths will be freed up on conventional lines for additional local and regional passenger trains, as well as more freight. The benefits go beyond rail too, as the more that can be carried by train means less has to go by road. And building a railway has a much lower impact on the environment than building a new motorway, which would have been the only realistic alternative given that we are not going to stop travelling anytime soon and the rail network is already at capacity in many places.
Building the line will remain controversial, as critics point out the high estimated costs (taking worse case scenarios) and say ‘look what happened to Crossrail’, which is late and overbudget. But HS2 will be the biggest construction project in Europe for years and, once complete, will be something we can be proud of, bringing many benefits for the country as a whole.
Paul Bickerdyke
A WHITBY FIRST: A Colas '70' became the first of the class to reach Whitby on February 8 when No. 70806 arrived at the Yorkshire coastal town with a ballast train from Doncaster. It is pictured at the terminus in the platform normally used by the NYMR’s heritage trains, stabled there for the following day’s relaying job on the Esk Valley line at Danby - work that also saw ‘top and tail’ Class 56s work along the line.
